BWFoster78
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Chapter 139 – Many a Slip
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 04:22:33 +0000 UTCZou Tian danced around the edges of the pile of spirit beasts, his dagger flashing as he killed a creature with every strike.
The rest of the sect members he’d exited the village with were all inundated by the creatures, but his Hide Presence technique left him undetectable until the moment he struck and then only to the beast his dagger stabbed. Since it inevitably died immediately, he stayed effectively invisible.
At first, he’d been worried for his associates who were literally covered in beasts, but no screams of pain accompanied them being attacked, though a few did seem more than a little disconcerted by the sheer quantity of foes overwhelming them. The best thing Zou Tian could do to help was to thin the herd as fast as he could.
Which was pretty darn fast. His daggers flashed, killing beast after beast.
On the other hand, there were just so many of the creatures. In a minute, he stabbed more than a score and added at least that many as every additional minute passed.
At the same time, arrows rained down into the center of the pile, avoiding the edges where Zou Tian and the others attacked. Even with all that offensive might on display, it barely seemed like they made any progress.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, though, the pile’s churning slowed as corpses first began to equal and then outnumber the live beasts.
He was tired and breathing heavy when Ye Zan blew the whistle allowing the rest of the melee fighters out of the gate to finish off the few hundred spirit beasts that still lived.
Zou Tian stepped back, allowing the fresh troops to close on the pile. He remained wary, though, ready to defend the others at need.
That assistance was not needed, though, as overall, the operation went really smoothly. The newcomers quickly stabbed any creature that moved, ending the wave.
###
Yang Xiu’s ears perked up at the sound of two long sharp blasts of the whistle, followed by a strike of the gong. Finally, she could at least begin to contribute something to the fight. She sprinted to the main gate and leaped over the wall.
Killing still wasn’t on the agenda, obviously, as all the beasts were already dead. No, her job was to accomplish something that only three other people in the entire village could do—use a spatial ring.
Kang Lin and Yang Ru weren’t far behind her, but she’d scooped up several corpses into one of the three spare rings Master had assigned to her before they arrived.
The rings he’d purchased at the Poison Claw Sect weren’t nearly as good as the one he wore. All he had to do to store something inside his was to have the ring be in the general vicinity of an item and issue it a mental command.
Yang Xiu and the others had to physically touch the item they wanted to store, and even then, it wouldn’t move unless it was completely unobstructed, meaning she had to actually put her finger on a bloody corpse to move it into the ring. Sometimes, though, nothing happened, which meant a part of another corpse was on top of it. In those cases, she had to move the obstruction before the valuable materials could be stored.
That process was even more complicated when there was an arrow penetrating the body as those were needed and being gathered by others. So, she had to first remove it, a tedious and messy procedure.
At least she was contributing.
###
Peng Hanying was so excited. He was finally allowed to do something to help the sect. Since expensive resources had been consumed to increase the rank of his spiritual roots in the hopes of him one day being able to use a powerful qi aspect, he’d felt there was a huge debt between him and the sect, and the only way so far for him to begin paying it down was cultivating. But how could he consider advancing his cultivation to be a true repayment when it helped him more than it helped the sect?
Today, though, he was accomplishing something, albeit small, that truly did benefit his fellow sect members and Master—Peng Hanying was picking up arrows that had been shot at spirit beasts.
For each, he carefully examined the arrow and put it in one of three piles. The first pile was for the relatively pristine ones that could immediately be re-used. Into the second went slightly damaged arrows, ones needing a new fletching or that had a damaged tip, etc. Those were to be sent to the fletchers for repair. The final pile was for those too damaged to even be re-used. Those would also be sent to the fletchers just in case some part of it could be cannibalized to repair another arrow.
The work wasn’t glamorous or dangerous—all the spirit beasts were confirmed dead by Master before the last wave of defenders were allowed outside the wall—but it was important. Thousands of arrows had already been used, and only the first wave was finished. If those weren’t recovered, the defenders would surely run out.
Peng Hanying smiled. It felt good to repay a tiny portion of his debt.
###
Benton kept his spiritual sense active, alternately scanning both far from the village and close to it the entire time the most junior of his sect members and the purely mortal villagers were outside combing the area for arrows. Though he fully expected all the spirit beasts to move in waves according to their rank, it wasn’t impossible that a high ranked one might could appear and attack ahead of time, and it wouldn’t do for the relatively defenseless defenders to be caught unaware.
Thus, as soon as a mass of rank twos moved into range, he knew it.
“Ye Zan,” Benton said. “Second wave.”
The guard captain immediately blew the signal—one long blast to get everyone’s attention followed by five short, one long, and five more short blasts. All those outside the wall dropped what they were doing as soon as the fourth of the first set of five short blasts were sounded.
Literally dropped. Any arrow not already in a pile hit the ground, and the workers quickly gathered up those that were before running back toward the gate.
Even the three Foundation Establishment cultivators exercised good discipline even though they were unlikely to be harmed even if they were caught out by the next wave. Each of the three stopped storing beasts and instead moved to get between the beasts’ likely point of exit from the forest and the workers.
Ye Zan’s drills were more effective than Benton thought they would be.
Of course, the speed and concern of the defenders were seriously overblown, considering the circumstances. The rank twos were definitely faster than the rank ones, but he didn’t expect them to arrive immediately. It had taken the first wave a couple of hours after entering sensing range to show up at the wall.
The next wave would probably take somewhere in the neighborhood of half that, which gave plenty of time to get everyone to safety.
Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Being caught up outside the wall when the beasts arrived would be a Bad Thing, and even if speed evacuating back to the village wasn’t important at the moment, it definitely would be for future waves. Rank fours could cover the same distance much quicker, perhaps justifying the defender’s haste. Rank fives…
Well, speed was definitely a Good Thing for the later waves, if anyone besides the Foundation Establishment cultivators were allowed outside at all.
In less than ten minutes, the last stragglers had made it inside, and the gate was closed. Kang Lin and the twins dumped the beast corpses at the house designated to hold the spoils in order to clear space for the next set of valuable materials. The arrows were either distributed to the barrels around the village or delivered to the fletchers as appropriate for each pile. And most importantly, any of the melee fighters with even the most minor of scratches from the battle reported to Benton.
For each of them, Benton quickly did a diagnosis before sending a wave of Healing qi into their bodies. Scrapes and bruises instantly disappeared, and as that was the extent of injuries suffered, he dismissed them.
With over an hour to go before the next wave arrived, he directed all of them to consolidate their gains, and soon, he began getting notifications.
In all, eleven of his sect members advanced a technique to the next milestone, and he was sure all of them gained some benefit from the fight and the reflection afterward.
As long as they could keep the beasts outside the walls, the tide should turn out to be a huge boon for the sect, both in terms of advancing individual power through skills and cultivation and materially for all the valuable cores, meat, skins, and other parts they’d be able to either use or sell.
Only one wave had passed, though, and that one contained only the least powerful of the forces arrayed against them. There was many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. It wouldn’t do to begin counting unhatched chickens just yet.
There was a lot of fighting left to be done.
Comments
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
BWFoster78 Last
Honestly, both ways have advantages for me. I might still switch back. Sorry for being kind of wishy washy on this.
Pedro Sernagiotto
For sure.
Guilherme Vasconcellos
I just discovered your novel and I fucking love it. Can someone recommend me other good novels with a similar premise? About building a sect, system is optional
fity0208
After a week I have to say I prefer the old method of dumping all chapters on Monday
richard C bond
"a high ranked one might could appear" - either might or could, but not both. :)
RedFaux
Wish I had more of these to read
